Page 101 of One Small Spark
“Maybe. Wow. They really just let it all…” She shimmies her hands in the air.
“Yup.”
“And there was not a stitch of…”
“Nope.”
“See, I thought I was bold, but…I’m not that bold.”
“Something to work up to.”
Her sassy smirk hits me square in the chest. “In your dreams, Callahan.”
She very much is.
TWENTY-EIGHT
WREN
There’ssomething especially intimate about seeing Shepherd’s bedroom. We’ve kissed a dozen times, but being in the room where he sleeps is like he’s wrapped all his innermost secrets up with a bow and handed them over. When we got back from the hot springs, he let me shower and change in his room while he rinsed off using the cabin’s outdoor shower. Because he’s a self-sacrificing gentleman and all that.
I’m not much of a self-sacrificing lady. I resisted the urge to snoop through his cabinets, but I shamelessly used his body wash and shampoo in the shower. I smell like a bike-repairing lumberjack who lives in the forest, and I have no regrets.
I change into leggings and a long-sleeve shirt, putting my hair into two braids. The hot springs were more relaxing than I expected—minus the nudity—but it doesn’t compare to being freshly washed in a temperature-controlled environment safe from brain-eating amoebas.
Creep that I am, I stand in Shepherd’s bedroom for a minute and just look. I touch nothing, but I’m pawing through his stuff with my eyes. The walls are sloped like I thought, with a big window in the middle revealing an expanse of forest. Hisbed cover is a soft-looking gray that I have the worst urge to cozy up underneath. He has a couple of books on his nightstand, but I can’t tell from here what they are. The green stuffy I made sits on one of his pillows, judging me for enjoying this moment so much.
I never perfected cartwheels when I was a kid, but my heart is sure doing them now. It’s not that big of a deal. Just a stuffy on his bed. It doesn’t mean anything. But I snap a picture of it and make it my phone’s lock screen like a lunatic anyway.
Pretending to be a model of self-control, I grab my tote bag and leave Shepherd’s room. Immediately, I almost run into him in the short hallway between the two bedrooms up here.
He’s changed into a hunter green short-sleeve T-shirt and black sweatpants. Weirdly, the sweatpants aren’t even what gets my heart rate kicking up. It’s his socks. They’re a marled gray and are somehow more private than seeing his bare feet.
All I can think about is him padding around the cabin in his cute little socks. Cozying up on the couch while his feet stay toasty. Cooking dinner in the kitchen in his sock feet. I want to witness every single scenario. On repeat.
Do I have a thing for feet? Or am I just really, really weird about Shepherd?
“Everything okay?” he asks.
Because, oh yes, I’m staring at his feet. I am normal sometimes, I swear.
I snap my gaze up to his. “All good. Your shower’s really nice.”
The whole cabin is. Nothing fancy, the way Lila described the guest cabins at the lodge, but not so rustic I expected the water to come out brown. It’s cozy and warm, and I think I’d like to stay forever.
I am a master of restraint and do not say that part out loud.
“Good.” His mouth tips up, and my stomach tumbles right down the stairs. “Are you ready to learn how to make bread?”
I frown at him. “I know how to make bread, Callahan.”
“Sorry, let me rephrase. Are you ready to learn how to make good bread?”
I gasp like a dowager in a historical romance. “Rude.”
I slip past him and down the stairs, telling my heart to knock it off. It’s not normal to getexcitedwhen someone’s intentionally being a pain. And yet, here I am. Loving it.
I drop my tote bag by the front door and go to his kitchen, spreading my arms wide. “I’m here. Enlighten me.”
